in
Sicily! Behold a Sicily more rich! Lordships and lands to the
living,--glory and salvation to those who die under the gonfanon of the
Church! On, to the cry of the Norman warrior; the cry before which have
fled so often the prowest Paladins of Burgundy and France--'Notre Dame et
Dex aide!'" [268]

Meanwhile, no less vigilant, and in his own strategy no less skilful,
Harold had marshalled his men. He formed two divisions; those in front
of the entrenchments; those within it. At the first, the men of Kent, as
from time immemorial, claimed the honour of the van, under "the Pale
Charger,"--famous banner of Hengist. This force was drawn up in the form
of the Anglo-Danish wedge; the foremost lines in the triangle all in
heavy mail, armed with their great axes, and covered by their immense
shields. Behind these lines, in the interior of the wedge, were the
archers, protected by the front rows of the heavy armed; while the few
horsemen--few indeed compared with the Norman cavalry--were artfully
disposed where they could best harass and distract the formidable
chivalry with which they were instructed to skirmish, and not peril
actual encounter. Other bodies of the light armed; slingers, javelin
throwers, and archers, were planted in spots carefully selected,
according as they were protected by trees, bushwood, and dykes. The
Northumbrians (that is, all the warlike population, north the Humber,
including Yorkshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, etc.), were, for their
present shame and future ruin, absent from that field, save, indeed, a
few who had joined Harold in his march to London. But there were the
mixed races of Hertfordshire and Essex, with the pure Saxons of Sussex
and Surrey, and a large body of the sturdy Anglo-Danes from Lincolnshire,
Ely and Norfolk. Men, too, there were, half of old British blood, from
Dorset, Somerset, and Gloucester. And all were marshalled according to
those touching and pathetic tactics which speak of a nation more
accustomed to defend than to aggrieve. To that field the head of each
family led his sons and kinsfolk; every ten families (or tything) were
united under their own chosen captain. Every ten of these tythings had,
again, some loftier chief, dear to the populace in peace; and so on the
holy circle spread from household, hamlet, town,--till, all combined, as
one county under one Earl, the warriors fought under the eyes of their
own kinsfolk, friends, neighbours, chosen chiefs